One man's journey through his 50+ long boxes.
One issue at a time, completely at random.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Up next...Action Comics Weekly!

I've finally come down off of my Vision-fueled, continuity high and am ready to get back on the wagon of accessible comics.

Will the Randomizer take it easy on me, or will he throw in some Young Avengers/Iron Lad tomfoolery to really push me over the edge?

The suspense is killing me, so let's get on with it already and let the Randomizer pick the next book up for review...

...and the next pick is Action Comics Weekly #614 from August 1988, published by DC Comics!

So as I was double checking the publishing date, I forgot that for the weekly books they listed the actual date that it was released on. It turns out that this book was released on August 23rd, and not only was that just three days ago, but it was also my birthday! It's another one of those happy coincidences that makes doing a random blog like this a lot of fun.

But wait, there's more...for with DC in the midst of their next attempt at a weekly comic with Wednesday Comics, we get to take a look at their first attempt (or at least the first one that I remember).

But wait, there's still more...for with DC in the midst of a run of Action Comics without Superman, we get to take a look at their first attempt with this concept (yeah, he's got an ongoing two-page story in this, but it's hardly the focus of the series).

That's right, we're back in the heady post-Crisis days of the late 80's and John Byrne was wrapping up his relaunch of the Superman titles. Who would want to follow that act up?

With Action Comics, apparently a whole lot of people did, as they went with an anthology format on a weekly basis. Superman gets a token appearance with a two page story in each issue. It's a cool nod to Superman's presence in this title for the past 50 years, and also a nice swan song showcase for Curt Swan.

Green Lantern was the defacto headliner while a succession of B and C stringers followed including the Blackhawks, Secret Six, Deadman, Phantom Stranger, Wild Dog, and Speedy.

It's another 48 pager, so I'll probably break it up over the next couple of days and post one or two stories a day to give each feature a chance to have a little spotlight all to itself.

Speaking of spotlights...it's time again to admire an awesome cover, this one by Mike Mignola. It seems like he's been doing Hellboy for so long, that it's nice to see him do some old-school superheroes, especially some from the cosmic end of the spectrum. I just recently picked up his Cosmic Odyssey series that he did with Jim Starlin, and seeing this cover reminds me that I need to finish reading that.

So make sure you come back tomorrow as we kick off our review with Peter David and Green Lantern!